


Sacrifices

by marysutherland



Series: Blame Jeremy Bentham [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Utilitarianism is not always a good option, darwinian seduction techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 22:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/274087">Tastes</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/274521/chapters/434723"> Holmes comforts</a>. Sherlock has realised Mycroft and John are together and he isn't happy...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mycroft had told John that Sherlock wasn't good at sharing, but he knew that John thought this was just Mycroft's prejudices showing. Because his training of Sherlock had been so thorough over the years that almost everybody was fooled.

He'd realised that Sherlock's self-centredness was abnormal when he'd spent an afternoon playing German whist with a not very well seven-year old Sherlock. They'd played fourteen games, because that was what Sherlock wanted, and fourteen times Sherlock had come up with a different justification for why he got to play first. It had been that that had alarmed Mycroft, even more than that reason number twelve had been "Because otherwise I'll tell Mummy that you fancy Tom Barford".

So he took his usual systematic approach to modifying Sherlock's behaviour: check he understood the intellectual concept of sharing and fairness properly, and then apply it in a concrete situation. Hence the five biscuits test. Put five biscuits on a plate, tell Sherlock they were going to share them, and then ask him how many Sherlock should take first.

Do it on paper and Sherlock could get the calculations right up to at least 500 biscuits. Do it in real life, and Mycroft went biscuit-lesstime after time. Until the day when he'd thought he'd finally cracked it, because Sherlock had spent such a long time considering the plate. Only to announce: "I'm fed up with biscuits. You can have them all, Mycroft, stuff your face like usual."

Mycroft was a patient teenager, turning into an incredibly patient man. He varied the training over the years, with the meticulous, systematic thoroughness that made his tutors think he should become a researcher, as if he had time for anything more than his eternal PhD in Sherlock Studies. If Sherlock could not be generous or fair by instinct, he could become so by habit. Most of the time now, you could hardly tell the difference between Sherlock and someone normal, but it was a different matter if the five biscuits were something that Sherlock really cared about. You might get four to one, or in exceptional moments three to two. You could never expect Sherlock to go fifty-fifty.

Of course, sharing John was a rather different matter from biscuits. It was inappropriate to claim that Mycroft possessed John in the first place, even though he couldn't help going round saying to himself, _My true love hath my heart and I have his_. Sherlock could have no interest in John's heart, and it wasn't as if John was the kind of man who could only love, give attention to, one person. And Mycroft carefully, deliberately, restricted his claims on John's time and energy. Because even if he wasn't married to his own work, it still required the kind of open-ended commitment normally restricted to parents of small children. Besides, John was far more helpful to Sherlock's activities than his own, and enjoyed them far more. They'd quickly come to an understanding that John would be staying at 221B and visiting Richmond, rather than the other way around. John was, deep down, happier living somewhere with unexpected entrails, and there were times when Mycroft desperately needed a entirely solitary bolthole. In terms of time, you had to say it was still four biscuits to Sherlock.

Which left only John's body. To Mycroft it was now inconceivable that anyone could not desire John. He half expected bands of adoring men and women following him down the streets of London whenever he went out, helplessly drawn to him. But apparently some people found John resistible. And Sherlock was not interested in sex.

Except Sherlock had not been interested in the solar system before John had taught him about it. Or watching daytime television. Or eating salad. Somewhere deepunder sheets and sheets of ice, Mycroft suspected there was a core of sensuality in Sherlock. And he worried that proximity to John was somehow going to melt that ice.

John had told him not to worry. That he suspected Sherlock had quite a bit more sexual experience than Mycroft realised, but had learnt to control his own impulses. Mycroft admitted he might be wrong about Sherlock's private life, and carefully didn't add that he knew only too well that Sherlock's impulse control was sketchy.

But it was easy for Mycroft to forget his fears for a while, because it was spring, and the sun was shining pleasantly, not yet the heavy London heat waves that brought rivers of sweat pouring off Mycroft – John's internal thermostat, of course, could cope with any climate. And now there was no need for secrecy, they could spend time together out of doors, not always be hiding away. On the computer in the locked room in Richmond, Mycroft now had an incongruous screensaver: the surveillance shots he'd begged from the Chinese of John and him in April on the Millennium Bridge, a sequence of tighter and tighter close ups, till all you could see was the cameraman's incredulous zoom-in on the fact that John and Mycroft were holding hands. Because this was the twenty-first century, and John was registered as his interest, and he didn't care who knew it now.

And then John turned up at Richmond one evening with a bite mark on his neck.

***

Training Sherlock to share had had only partial success; so had training himself not to be jealous of Sherlock. Mycroft forced himself to remember that he had no evidence that John liked to be bitten. And then, after greeting John, politely enquired about the mark, because he'd decided that the diplomatic corps approach to John was not very effective.

"Vampires," said John, rolling his eyes."Well, not actually vampires, hypothetical vampires."

"Even in London, getting bitten by hypothetical vampires is unusual."

"It's Sussex," said John. "I don't know what it is about Sussex. Sherlock has a case there about a woman who may have attacked her own baby, and he wanted to check whether a bite mark alone looked different from a bite mark superimposed on some other form of wound. He pointed out that he could hardly practice on his own neck. And I suspect if I hadn't agreed he's have tried to persuade Molly to volunteer, or to let him loose in the morgue, and that would be really bad news. I thought it would be safer if I did it, and no, I didn't enjoy it, not at all."

"It doesn't matter, it's fine," said Mycroft. "Come and have some food, we'll have to eat quickly if we're going to make it to the concert."

***

There had been another Uighur crisis, so Mycroft's only time with John for the next week was a hurried lunch in his office, which despite what everyone in the building probably believed, was spent almost entirely talking, with only occasional kissing. Mycroft carefully didn't mention what had been happening in 221B for the last few days, but fortunately John hadn 't had Foreign Office training either.

"I presume you know about Sherlock deciding shirtlessness is a good look around the flat," he said.

"Several of the surveillance team are doing unpaid overtime, but we did have to lock down their access to YouTube. I hope you're coping with it," said Mycroft, trying to make it sound like a minor difficulty with the plumbing.

"I told Sherlock if he was really worried about vitamin D deficiency, he needed to go outside while topless," John replied. "I'm ex-army, Mycroft, I'm used to men going around with not many clothes on. And-"

John's phone started ringing. He read the text, and then sighed: "He's an idiot sometimes. " He handed the phone to Mycroft, who read: _Return immediately, am conducting drip pattern analysis of showering while partially clothed. Need you to write notes, since very wet all over. SH_

"I don't know how he thinks of these, I just don't," said John. "I've got a diabetic clinic at two. Do you think you could reply? Because if I use any more swear words in my messages, the predictive text function is going to get completely screwed up. "

Mycroft read out the message as he slowly typed it: "Dear Sherlock, John is tied up – is that OK, John? - until 6 p.m. Suggest you end your experiment. Pneumonia, as you will remember, is not sexy. MH".

He sent the message and handed the phone back to John, John's fingerprints overlaying his, overlaying John's.

"It'll be OK," said John, "I can handle Sherlock."

***

John's voice was suspiciously calm when he called on the private line a couple of days later.

"You may be getting reports from your surveillance team shortly about Sherlock sustaining facial injuries," he said.

"I've had them already. There were suggestions that he'd run into a door, I believe."

"The side of the bath. He jumped me when I was in it. You know I react badly when I'm approached suddenly. Can't help it, reflexes just kick in."

"I know you're quite safe around baths, John. I've checked that extensively."

"Sherlock doesn't know. It was that or having him arrested for sexual harassment, and I think the direct approach is the best for him. The direct approach with a certain amount of gratuitous violence. I think Sherlock's lost his appetite for games, Mycroft."

***

Sherlock's persistence had always been remarkable, but so was his tactical flexibility. So the next things was pictures, targeting Mycroft this time. Every website he looked at, every e-mail he received from anyone, seemed to include one. Nothing remotely indecent, Sherlock couldn't be pinned down like that. Just photo after photo of Sherlock and Mycroft – he had no idea there were so many of them, how many relatives' photo albums had Sherlock raided? From Sherlock aged three and Mycroft ten, up to last Christmas and that unfortunate photo that Mummy had insisted on, with the matching ties. All with the silent, irrefutable message: I am better looking than you, more poised, more attractive. I always have been, I always will be.

And then the pictures of Mycroft stopped appearing and there was something new. Pictures from the aftermath of the Tilly Briggs case, with Sherlock sopping wet in his shirt, and John beside him. (Sherlock had photoshopped Lestrade out, which Mycroft supposed was something). There were a couple of the photos that Mycroft had never seen before, with John gazing up at Sherlock intently, holding his wrists...

"I was trying to work out if he was concussed," said John,when he arrived at Mycroft's house that evening, "and whether what I needed to do first was get him out of his wet clothes, or get his hands patched up before they got infected. And whether he'd swallowed any river water, and the probable onset time of severe gastroenteritis symptoms. Terribly romantic, wasn't it?"

"You got him out of his wet clothes later, did you?" said Mycroft.

"Yes, because I'm a doctor, and his hands were bandaged. If you're going to be jealous of every man I've ever dressed and undressed, we're going to have problems, Mycroft."

"It's not all the others," said Mycroft. "It's him." He gestured at the Annigoni portrait of himself and Sherlock on the wall of the entrance hall, the one thing in the house that wasn't there by his choice. His mother had insisted on him having it, because she said it was safer there. Not safe from Sherlock, of course, who'd broken in to photograph it, after years of indifference. The image was now plastered across half of Flickr. Or half-plastered, because a lot of re-use tended to chop Mycroft out of the scene. Annigoni had made the ten year old Sherlock look unearthly, radiant, but he hadn't managed that with the seventeen year old Mycroft.

"He does look unreal in that, doesn't he?" said John gazing up thoughtfully, "I mean even more alien than normal."

"You mean an impossibly beautiful creature from another realm?"

"No, I meant more sort of weird space-thingy. You must have noticed it, he does look a bit like someone designed him to look attractive and then thought, hey, why not take this further? Why not more cheekbones, wilder hair, tweak the eye slant parameter a bit? There are times I look at him and expect him to rip off the front of his skull, and there'll be a tiny green man hidden inside his brain."

"You've been watching _Men in Black_ , haven't you?"

"While slightly drunk, yes."

"Not a good move, John. And you find Sherlock's body just as alien as his face, do you?" said Mycroft, trying to sound amused, and knowing he was failing.

John sighed. "Can we go and sit down, please," he said, "I think we need to clear a few things up."

Once John was installed in the rocking-chair, he gazed across at Mycroft, trying and failing to relax on the sofa, and said: "I am not going to discuss Sherlock's body with you, Mycroft. What I am going to do is ask you whether you would sleep with Brad Pitt for ten million dollars?"

"Ten million?"

"Well it was one million to sleep with Robert Redford, but that was a while ago. So if it's a choice between Brad Pitt and lots of dosh or me, who would it be?"

Mycroft forgot sometimes that he wasn't the only practical man in this relationship.

"I am not interested in money," he replied haughtily, "and while Mr Pitt may have many admirable qualities, I'm not convinced he would be much use if one had the winter vomiting bug."

"Point taken?" John said, staring coolly at him.

"Point taken, It's just-"

"It's just you think no-one else in the world can control themselves, only you," John burst in, "but Mycroft, the most intense desire I have ever felt, far more than any sexual feelings, was in my first battle. The urge to run away from that and never go back again. And I didn't do it, however much I wanted to. And it's not just me. Ordinary people, lots of ordinary people, control themselves. They see someone they fancy, work with someone they fancy, share a flat with someone they fancy, but they don't do anything about it, because they have made commitments already. Like we have. I am your interest, half the world's governments probably know that by now. And if anybody bothered to keep a list of who ex-army officers were committed to, you'd be on it. I've got you as my next of kin on every bloody form I can as it is."

Mycroft had accepted that John was never going to be any good at words about their relationship, that was his department. He'd forgotten that John's preference was for concrete action.

"Would you, could you consider...," he half-breathed, and then his courage ran out, and all he could say was: "There would be paperwork advantages to a civil partnership."

"If you say so, " John replied, slightly shakily. "I'm game. Who do we need to tell first?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What will Sherlock do once Mycroft and John get engaged?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-graphic references to suicide.

Sherlock was the only person they'd told so far about the engagement. Mycroft was trying to convince himself that was because he needed to work out what to say to Mummy first, before going public. He knew it was really because he was waiting for Sherlock's next move. Sherlock congratulated them in a way that suggested he'd read a book of etiquette and almost understood it. After that, he'd waited for several days, until Mycroft had taken John off to start sorting out some of the paperwork, and then gone out and got himself stabbed.

You couldn't prove it was deliberate, thought Mycroft, but it didn't really matter if it wasn't. Their lives, all their plans, had been put on hold, nothing but sitting round in the hospital for days. The night they heard that Sherlock was going to pull through, an exhausted John had wept on Mycroft's shirtfront.

Mycroft hadn't cried about Sherlock, he'd never been able to. Instead he'd organised things: his own work, Sherlock's clients, the Met, John eating and sleeping. He carefully arranged his own visits to Sherlock so he was never alone with him in his private room, so that he wasn't tempted to attack him when Sherlock wore one of his more romantically wounded hero looks. Sherlock was ostensibly being a good patient, but Mycroft could still spot his games. So when Sherlock was discharged, he paid for agency staff to come into 221B, so John wasn't responsible for having to look after Sherlock. Mycroft though he'd covered everything, which proved he was slipping. Because on the evening that Mycroft insisted that John came to the pub with him for a quick drink, it had been straightforward for Sherlock to distract his nurse with a exploding egg in the microwave, rush downstairs,supposedly to get Mrs Hudson's help, fall, and rip out half his stitches.

Mycroft didn't let John go back to 221B, because that was what you hired crime scene cleaners for, and he only gave John ten minutes at Bart's, long enough to confirm that Sherlock was alive, but not enough to alter that fact. And then he took John back to Richmond and let him drink himself half-senseless, as the most effective short-term way for him to cope. He didn't particularly worry even when a very drunk John had said that there were times when he wished Sherlock was dead, because that was as most an objective. But Mycroft made very sure that he stayed sober that night, because he currently shared the same objective, and if he did get drunk he was worried he might also end up with a strategy to achieve it.

Sherlock was going to be in hospital for as long as Mycroft could persuade the doctors to keep him there, but he didn't think there would be any more incidents for a while, even when he came out. There didn't need to be. Sherlock had shown his hand clearly: the only difficulty now was explaining it to John.

***

"It's blackmail, emotional blackmail," John repeats yet again, the rocking chair moving so fast that it groans. Mycroft resists the temptation to point out that correctly identifying a problem is only the first step of successfully solving it. "I'm not giving in to that kind of behaviour."

"No, because you have principles," Mycroft says. "But you're only the secondary target. I'm Sherlock's main target and he knows how to make me back down. Because I am a utilitarian and I don't have any principles that outweigh a dead brother."

"You can't let Sherlock win, or-"

"Or he'll try it again the next time? But if I don't let him have his way, there may not be a next time. Sherlock is prepared to risk his neck rather than accept us being together. There is no adequate method for deterring someone who's not afraid to die." I should have seen the possibilities from the start, he thinks, I should have a plan B right now and I don't.

"Not even Sherlock would be that stupid, surely?"

"My father decided when Sherlock was about ten that he was going to fix his fussy eating habits once and for all, show him that he couldn't always get his own way. He was furious that Sherlock wouldn't eat some sausages, so he said that Sherlock would get served nothing else till he ate them. Breakfast, lunch, tea, just that. Sherlock collapsed on the third day, and he was in hospital for several more. My father didn't repeat the exercise."

"And what did the bloody sausages think?" John yells. "I'm not anybody's property, I'm not willing to be your damn chew toy, or Sherlock's."

"No, you'd be entirely justified in leaving. Going somewhere far away from all the Holmes."

"And Sherlock would then kill himself." It's a statement, not a question, from John, and he can't lie to him now, or it's all over anyhow.

"You know Sherlock's ability to endanger his own life even when he's got you by his side. Without you, he'd barely even need to intend to die."

"But you wouldn't kill yourself if you lost me, would you?" John asks, and now it's the flat voice of someone who is far beyond all his normal emotional landmarks.

"No," says Mycroft, and wonders if people who know how to scream and sob find this kind of conversation easier. He can hear himself sounding like someone discussing the Common Agricultural Policy, but it's the only way he knows to keep the situation under any kind of control. "I'm a practical man. Living without you would be hard, very hard, but a better outcome for all concerned than me being dead. Not romantic, I'm afraid, but there we are."

"And similarly," Mycroft goes on in the silence that follows, because he has to make the situation clear, "I am not going to kill Sherlock for your sake, nor shoot you or have you shot, so that Sherlock cannot be with you."

John's head jerks back. Oh help, thinks Mycroft. I shouldn't have said 'have you shot', because it's reminding John of who I am, what I am. That he's not the only man who's been responsible for getting people killed before now. That this situation really could be lethal. He can see John's eyes starting to flick round the room in the old way, looking for an escape route, as if he could run away from this problem.. .and John's left hand curling to hide its shake.

"Would Sherlock kill me, in order that you can't have me?" John says at last, far too calmly. "Because that would put an end to this as well, wouldn't it?"

John risked his own life for Sherlock at the swimming pool. It really isn't a train of thought that Mycroft wants John to continue.

"Not an acceptable end, no, John."

"Why the hell not?" John suddenly yells, jumping up from the chair, glaring at Mycroft. "Aren't you always prepared to sacrifice anything for Sherlock?"

"Not people's lives. I told Sherlock early on that if he ever caused someone's death deliberately, except in self-defence, that was my limit, there would be no more protection after that. I do not accept that kind of violence from anyone."

"I killed that cabbie," said John defiantly, "that wasn't self-defence."

"A man who'd killed already, who was trying to kill again. That was entirely justified. But if you ever kill anyone who is not an immediate threat to you or someone else, I will not put up with that, not even from you, John. They may do things differently in Afghanistan, but when you are in my country, you play by my rules."

Oh God, he thinks, how did I get to this? Threatening John, when I all want to do is protect him. It's as if Sherlock's somehow released the toxicity in all of them, and they're drowning in its thick black ooze. He can't find the words to turn this around, and he's not sure John would be able to hear them anyhow. All he can do is state the simple, basic facts, the parameters they have to stick to, and hope that even John's blanking-out mind can take them in.

"I do not approve of violence. So I will not kill Sherlock, you or myself. Nor will you. Nor, if I can help it, will Sherlock. It is a god-awful mess, but I am not going to let it become a fucking Renaissance tragedy."

John looks at him, and looks at him, and looks at him. And at last mutters: "Better go back to Baker Street, see Mrs Hudson." And turns and trudges out.

***

You can see the situation as a simple game of chicken, thinks Mycroft, where all that counts is who backs down first. Or think of it as a variant of the Prisoner's Dilemma, where the urge to grab more just makes the outcome worse for everyone. But what it feels like is the judgement of Solomon. Two mothers competing for the same baby. The one prepared to give up her claim rather than allow the baby to be killed is the true mother. But John, of course, is not a baby, and Mycroft should not be trying to decide this for him. It is just that John has made his decision and it is unacceptable. John is killing himself.

It's not the flamboyant suicide threats of Sherlock, it's the slow ebbing away of the will to keep going, because there's no advantage in being a natural fighter if you don't know who to attack. Mycroft suspects John may have come near this when he first came out of the army, that he'd been dangerously close then to slumping into a kind of apathetic lethargy in which remembering to keep living, to keep breathing each day, was a rather tedious chore that you might eventually almost accidentally forget to carry out. But this is definitely worse. When Mycroft talks to John now, talks about the ordinary pleasant things that are the only possible subjects of conversation left for them, it's as if there's a vacuum between them, so that Mycroft's voice can't reach him. John's getting to the stage where he responds coherently only to orders, where he is, after all, becoming the Holmes brothers' chew toy, his body and his mind slowly shutting down, continuing only from force of habit.

I could give him back the will to live, Mycroft thinks. Tell him that Sherlock does not matter, it is not our business what he does, it is not our fault if he cannot cope. Say we are all that matter. It might even be the principled thing to do. But he is a utilitarian and he cannot fudge the calculations. If John stays with Mycroft, Sherlock will kill himself, or get himself killed, and John and Mycroft's relationship will not survive. You can't hack the arms off two people and expect them then to fall into a happy embrace. But if John leaveshim for Sherlock, Mycroft will survive, because grownups don't die for love. He wishes he can work the hedonistic calculus to come up with a different answer, but he knows he can't. Sherlock is out of hospital now, and at some point the whole vicious dance will start again. He needs to break up with John, and he needs to do it soon, before John breaks up.

Once he decides, the practicalities are horribly easy. He's spent months learning how to calm, soothe, comfort John. He had merely to reverse the process, to lean subtly on the pressure points, so that the relationship suddenly becomes a booby-trapped nightmare for poor John. To set them up for the final quarrel, for the inevitable moment whenJohn is so physically and emotionally frazzled that he cannot perform in bed. So that Mycroft can unleash the unforgivable line:

"What's wrong, John? Would it help if you imagined I was Sherlock, because I'm sure you'd enjoy that more, wouldn't you?"

Somehow, mercifully, his mind largely wipes out the details of the shades of horror and anger and guilt and despair in John's face. What he cannot forget is that John does not yell or swear. He sits on the edge of the bed for a moment, and then gets dressed and leaves, and it is only the slam of the front door that shows he is not an automaton.

Where is Solomon when you need him to put things right, Mycroft thinks. Because it is not fair, it is not fucking fair. And then he slowly gets dressed and heads to work, because if he expected justice from life, he'd have joined the bloody UN.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft knows grownups don't die of love. Which is probably just as well, now Sherlock has managed to break up his engagement to John.

The one camera he'd been allowed inside 221B covers the front door and part of the kitchen, as the two most likely danger zones. Mycroft manages to hold out until the afternoon, but then he can't help himself watching the silent, slightly grainy images obsessively, even though he should be concentrating on Qatar. John has finally got some of the stains off the wallpaper since he's last observed the flat, hasn't he?

All he's seen of John so far is him making a cup of tea, and then disappearing off camera again. He looks normal. Then he comes back into shot briefly as he goes to do the washing up. Mycroft is now squinting at his ex-fiancé's back, half of his back, on a security camera, trying to deduce the state of his mental health. This is not sensible, especially since he's not sure if John was still capable of washing up before the break-up, so he isn't actually going to be able to make any useful deductions.

Sherlock bursts through the front door, tugging off his coat and scarf, bouncing round happily, obviously calling to John. John emerges from the kitchen, looking upwards, soberly, into Sherlock's face. Starts a conversation, hands behind his back, there's a determination in his stance that Mycroft hasn't seen for weeks, the reminder that's he a soldier. And a manic grin is spreading across Sherlock's face, no, that's inaccurate, he looks like an ecstatic angel, only with pumping fists. And then...

Then, you can say that Sherlock kisses John, but not if you know precisely how John deals with someone who's six foot or more. Because then you know from the angles that it's at least as much John kissing Sherlock.

Mycroft's hand is so unsteady on the mouse that it takes him several goes to close the window for the feed. He rapidly pulls up the form that will authorise the ending of internal surveillance on the flat. And then after that, he searches for the one to deregister an interest, because if the Service knows what is happening in your personal life, they're not too concerned about why.

*** 

The hardcopy surveillance reports on Sherlock still appear daily on Mycroft's desk, as they have for years, because he still wants to check personally that they are properly shredded. It's just that now he shreds them without reading them first, which may be ludicrous, but does save a certain amount of time. Then, a couple of weeks later, Anthea appears in his office carrying a DVD.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir," she announces," but there's a problem with some evidence for the Conroy gang. The Met have got some of our footage, but they're panicking it's a mixtape."

"Surely we have clever young men down in our IT labs who can demonstrate to them that the material hasn't been tampered with?"

"Yes, but DI Lestrade says they're probably the clever young men who cut the thing together in the first place. He says if you give the tape the all-clear, he'll run with it."

"Remind me again about the incident," Mycroft says, and know that she's mentally logging that he ought to have know the details already, and is possibly slipping.

"Suspected people traffickers, holed up in a factory in Deptford. They didn't have enough evidence for a warrant, so Sherlock and John went in as ferrets."

"My brother-" Mycroft tails off, because if he shows he didn't know Sherlock was involved in the case, that'll be another black mark. "Is it because of him that the Met are panicking?"

"It is, rather. Our footage isn't from a fixed camera, you see, he co-opted one of the surveillance team. He got him to focus on their planned escape route, so he could get some clear shots of their chasers' faces."

"He was planning to go in and provoke these people, and then run off on a pre-determined course? Is he completely insane?"

"That's really for you to say rather than me, isn't it? Sherlock has been the Met's ferret quite often before now, you know."

Mycroft hates the term 'ferret', because it misleadingly suggests that the person infiltrating somewhere with suspected criminals is the aggressor, that he's just going to be flushing some harmless rabbits from their burrows. He'd prefer the term 'sacrificial mouse': the mouse runs in, gets the cat to chase them out of the house, and there you are. As the police know, once you're chasing after someone in London, actually, once you're running in the streets of London, there's always something you can be arrested for. The problem is whether the cat gets to play games with the mouse before the police intervene. Especially since there are two mice this time, one far less experienced, and though John's got a lot of stamina, he's not really a sprinter. Still, presumably if either of them had ended up in hospital, he'd have heard about it before now.

"Are you going to watch the tape now, sir?" Anthea asks. "Or do you need any more data first?"

He can hardly ask if it's going to have a happy ending before he takes a look, so he takes the disk and starts running it on his computer. An anonymous roof top, presumably of some office block, the camera panning round, searching through the pattern of moonlight and shadows, then a brief glimpse of the sky. Almost like an establishing shot.

"It's Sid Paget, isn't it?" he says, and Anthea nods. Surveillance by an arthouse director manqué, no wonder the Met are suspicious. He doesn't know sometimes why they put up with Sid: well, except that he can watch a closed door for a whole eight hour shift and not lose focus, as long as there aren't any nice reflective patches of engine oil around.

For five or ten minutes the film really does begin to resemble an arthouse feature, with nothing but slightly shifting patterns of light and dark. Then a couple of racing figures burst into the shot, one lean and dramatic, the second shorter and sturdier. They race across the rooftop, and vanish. And then their pursuers appear, and the zoom accurately picks out each one of the four faces as the men hurtle along the roof, before heading down the ladder at the other side. Sid may not win an Oscar for this one, Mycroft thinks, but he should be eligible for a performance related pay award.

Another few minutes of nothing but rooftop, and then two shadows detach themselves from the shadows of the parapet and uncoil themselves into Sherlock and John. It's an old trick and a dangerous one: if they'd been spotted, all that the surveillance means is that Sid would get a summons to the inquest. As always, it's even more dangerous because Sherlock hasn't camouflaged his face, though at least John has. But they've beaten the odds this time, though John is still flicking glances around to make sure they're safe and...oh God, he knows that expression on John's face. And John's gloved hands are fumbling at his belt now - why the hell doesn't Paget stop the camera? And then Sherlock's gloves are in John's hair, pulling up his head, and the smile on John's blackened face is so broad it's a wonder Sherlock's lips can cover it. 

Mycroft forces himselfto sit and keep on watching, as the man he loves and his own brother have vigorous sex on a London rooftop. Because the first thing that the surveillance teams are taught is that computer memory is cheap and information valuable. And because, although he is Anthea's boss, she also has other people she takes instructions from. It's a set-up, of course, but it isn't for the moment worth contemplating who's trying to do what to whom. Other than the obvious, of course. And at least John and Sherlock are quick about the whole thing, John dressing afterwards in a scramble that's all too familiar.

"Tell Lestrade that the tape's genuine," he manages to say at the end, "and that if the second half ever gets out, he's finishing his career in the British Transport Police."

"Very good, sir."

Mycroft doesn't know if the next bit is what his masters want to hear, but never mind.

"And, given the pressure on government finances currently, I don't think we can justify any more surveillance on my brother. He seems to have everything well in hand."

"I understand. I'll get it stopped immediately."

***

It is the memory of John's smile that drives Mycroft half mad for days, as if it would be fine for him to be with Sherlock as long as he was unhappy. Mycroft spends hours repeatedly working out plans for the rendition of men to Algerian jails, copying and recopying the notes in his normally meticulous handwriting whenever the biro smudges. Because he obviously cannot type such notes up, which would leave a record: besides, they have to go to the recipient handwritten in ballpoint pen.

He also gets the CIA to replace the hard drive of his home computer, so that the pictures of John are gone. The polite young Hispanic man who does it looks slightly warily at Mycroft, especially when he asks Mycroft to destroy the drive physically, and Mycroft's hand with the hammer comes down again and again, as he remembers a lock splintering in the warehouse.

He realises then that the funny looks he's getting will translate into discreet enquiries by the Americans, and that any of the more flamboyant reactions to the end of a relationship – heavy drinking, one night stands, the abduction of Sherlock – will threaten his job. He still has the option of lower-level behaviour of course:pining, moping, sulking. But to what end? It won't make him feel better, so is there any countervailing benefit to anyone else? Sherlock would probably be pleased if he knew that Mycroft was suffering; John might, perhaps, not be. So that is no use. And the rest of the world will not care. Grief is only romantic in the young and attractive; balding, middle-aged men should not expect to find and keep love.Probably some of his acquaintances would find his situation funny.

He can't expect support or sympathy from others: he must take care of himself. But it is far harder than he expects this time. He coped with his father's death, with Janet running away, so why is this taking so long to start to heal? Put it as a problem and the answer is clear. Part of him is still expecting, hoping, that John will come back. So there's always too much food around, in case John turns up and is hungry. Books bought that John might like to read. And when Mycroft wanders the streets of Richmond at night, it's not just insomnia, but the unconscious thought that John might be coming to see him, but has somehow got lost.

It is not going to happen. It is easier to tell himself that John, his John, is dead. The tough, funny, oddly gentle man who likes, liked, Humphrey Bogart films, and hot baths, and curling up in Mycroft's bed making silly jokes after sex. He can grieve for that John now as lost, draw on the memory of him and his strength to help Mycroft's own resilience. It is, after all, not just the British army that keeps going whatever the situation: so does Her Majesty's government. There is still a bed reserved for Mycroft in a nuclear bunker somewhere, though unfortunately, probably not a comfortable one.

It's a psychological trick, an illusion, of course, to imagine that John is dead. That the man called John, forever running over the rooftops after Sherlock, is not the same person, just a dangerous stranger, desperately seeking thrills, with no time to slow down, find comfort, give comfort.But even though it's an illusion, it somehow gives Mycroft just enough of a toe-hold on his own life to become able to function again, start rebuilding himself. Which is just as well, because despite giving up the surveillance, it isn't long before he has to hear about John Watson again. Lestrade calls, demanding to know if Sherlock has got John onto drugs. Mycroft listens with momentary alarm, but is then able to point out acidly that symptoms of irritability, tiredness, and inability to concentrate probably just mean than John is now addicted to London.

Sherlock is harder to deal with. Common decency would stop him turning to Mycroft for help ever again. Unfortunately, Mycroft hasn't even attempted to train him in that. The text arrives early one dampOctober morning:

 _Arrested in Seething Lane Garden. City of London police, not Met. They insist we need a solicitor before talking. Send one immediately, bored here. SH_

Mycroft texts back, because he's definitely not prepared to speak to Sherlock.

 _Where are you? Is John with you? MH_

 _Bishopsgate. John arrested with me. City lot have worse tea and conversation than the Met. How long are you going to be? Or do I sort this out myself? SH_

 _Tell John's he's an idiot. Someone will be there ASAP. Don't provoke extra charges before then. MH_

 _Knew I could count on you. Probably not eligible fora knighthood now. SH_

***

It was bizarre that even now Sherlock apparently didn't understand the connection between _Is John with you?_ and _Someone will be there ASAP_. That he did not - could not? – recognise what he had done to Mycroft, how it was still affecting him. It was just as well that he didn't, thought Mycroft. It was bad enough having to do things for Sherlock because he was Mycroft's brother. It would be worse being made to do things for Sherlock because he was John's...theatre of operations. John wasn't dead of course, however much it might have helped him once to imagine that. Not dead but fearfully changed. Unlike Mycroft's feelings.

He didn't call John an idiot the next time he was arrested. To get arrested instead of Sherlock was an occupational hazard of associating with him. To get arrested protecting Sherlock was nothing less than he'd expect from John. To keep on getting arrested alongside Sherlock – for trespass, vandalism, outraging public decency – spoke of a recklessness that would one day end in disaster. It was easier to fall into bad habits than escape them.

John was not dead, but Mycroft doubted he would ever be the same again. Of course, he wasn't the same either, but there was still a job to be done. The work went on: the politicians who couldn't tell an aspiration from an objective from a strategy. Or a good strategy from a bad one. The ones who still thought that invading countries starting with the letter "I' was a good move. That if 'something must be done' and they'd thought of something, it was therefore automatically a good idea to do it.

He smiled smarmily at Sarkozy and said things in French that he'd blush to say in English. He made contingency plans about ex-President Putin and President-over-his-dead-body Palin. And he told himself once again that what counted in the end was the greatest good of the greatest number. It was just unfortunate that his number never came up.

***

The pain didn't go away, but it was mostly manageable, except for the part that he'd still been deluding himself about. Telling himself that if he ignored the calendar, Christmas would not come. That somehow December 23rd would be followed seamlessly by January 6th and he would not have to go to Stow-on-the-Wold and spend Christmas with his family. He was tempted to provoke a crisis, prevent himself being able to go over, but that would be unprofessional.

Sherlock wasn't there where he arrived on the morning of the 24th, and for a moment he hoped he wouldn't be coming, even as he knew how much it would hurt his mother.

"He's coming later," she announced to him, when he finally enquired. "Said he'd be here when we got back from the midnight service. Of course I thought at first it was just an excuse to avoid that after last year. You remember, the argument with Professor Sharp about Quirinius. But I think it's not just that, because in his last text he said he'd be bringing a friend to stay, can you believe it? Do you know anything about her, Mycroft? She's not foreign by any chance, is she?It's just for the catering I'm worried about, if there are things she can't eat."

Coming out on Christmas morning, thought Mycroft, this could be one of the low points of the Holmes' Christmases. Still, at least it gave him a few hours to brace himself for the sight of John again. He'd have liked to have several stiff drinks beforehand, but he was sure he was going to get asked to take the collection at the midnight service, "because people always give so generously when you look at them like that."

When they got back from the service, however, there was no Sherlock, no John. Just two large envelopes left on the kitchen table. Mycroft rapidly opened the one addressed to him, as his mother heated up some mulled wine for their night-time drink, and read the scrawled note inside:

 _Sorry, can't make it back from Ireland in time. Don't eat too many mince pies. Picture from Dublin enclosed. SH_

He pulled out the glossy photo -large, professionally taken, in the early afternoon, judging from the shadows. He squinted vaguely at the classical style architecture in the background: not the Government Buildings, as he'dthought at first, but the General Post Office. Then, at last, he made himself look at the foreground. Sherlock, with his arm around John, in a pose that said _Mine_ and _You can't Photoshop this one away_.Sherlock's smile was gorgeous and triumphant, John's stoical. Because of the relationship, or the suit he was in, or having his photo taken, or just the fact that Sherlock's arm was draped heavily over his left shoulder?

Mycroft was so absorbed by John's face that he hadn't been quick enough to take in the significance of the second envelope, and now Mummy was passing him the mulled wine, and sitting down herself, and pulling out her copy of the photo. Mycroft couldn't look. Gulping down the spicy wine, he buried his gaze in the photo he held, as if he could drag more information from it. But John was just as opaque to him as ever, and just as desirable, he could almost the feel of those tense lips on his...

"Mycroft," his mother said, "I think we do need to talk about this a teeny bit."

He forced himself to meet her eyes. There was no physical resemblance – she had always been small and soft and rounded - and it was only her sharp dark eyes that spoke of something beyond a little old lady now. Beneath all the fluffiness though, there was a harder, more practical core. She was not Mycroft's most dangerous opponent or relative, but sometimes one of the more disconcertingones.

"I, I'm sorry," he said at last, "I didn't know how to tell you."

"Well, I'd rather given up hope of grandchildren anyhow, and it's not poor Sherlock's fault he's homosexual," she replied. "No, I believe 'gay' is the term now, though I always find that a bit confusing. That is what it's about, isn't it? I haven't misinterpreted the photo?"

"No, you haven't. Sherlock and John, John Watson are...together."

"No wonder Sherlock didn't feel they could come to the service, which is silly, because the vicar is very understanding about that sort of thing. In fact, if they ever want a blessing, I'm sure something could be arranged." She paused. "Or is it not at that stage, is it something more, more casual?"

"I don't know about Sherlock's feelings," said Mycroft. "I think John is very...committed."

"That's good," she said. "I wouldn't want anyone who might break Sherlock's heart. Now tell me more. I know a little about John from his blog, but he's not a very expressive writer."

"You've been reading John's blog?"

"Sherlock's site linked to him and John does at least give a few more useful details of their activities than Sherlock's phone calls. John's a doctor and an officer, I gather, so presumably presentable, probably more so than Sherlock, I expect. You must know him a bit. What's he like?"

"A brave man," Mycroft said slowly. "Friendly. Kind. He was very good to me last year when I had some horrible stomach bug."

"A caring man, that's good. Sherlock needs looking after. And is he a good man, do you think, Mycroft? Sherlock really needs someone like that."

He was before he met Sherlock, thought Mycroft. But no, he mustn't be inaccurate.

"He's...a very loyal man, strong principles, perhaps a bit...reckless."

"Soldiers are often like that, I find," she replied, smiling. "I know your father never quite got over the fact that nothing in the rest of his life was as exciting as Korea. But I'm sure John and I will find lots of things to talk about. If I can just persuade Sherlock to actually bring him here, rather than back out at the last moment."

"You seem very...accepting of it," said Mycroft. "I thought it might be a shock."

"Well, we do know about these things in Gloucestershire," she said, "we're not complete country bumpkins." She paused, and looked quizzically at Mycroft. "And anyhow, I have spent rather a lot of years working out what to do if my son did finally tell me he was gay."

He knew he ought to say something in response. It was just that his mouth had abruptly stopped working. And his mind. And possibly his entire nervous system.

"I'm sorry," his mother said at last, "but I thought I ought to tell you I knew. I mean I understand you need to be discreet in the civil service, but it's been nearly ten years since Janet left you. "

"Janet told you?" Mycroft croaked out.

"I went to talk to her, because I was hoping you might be able to make it up, even after she went off with that horrible man and his horrible dogs. But then she explained about you being, you know, and I did see then that you really weren't going to be able to make a go of it. But the thing is, darling, it's all rather different now, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, they've got regulations now, haven't they? So they can't sack you from your job just because of, of who you're going out with.So I really think you should take advantage of that. Especially with John around."

"John? I, I, I-"

"I'm sorry, I'm not explaining myself very well am I? Networks. Homosexuals, gay people have networks, or so I've been told. So what I thought is that John will have some nice gay friends he can introduce you to, suitable ones. Don't you think that's a good idea?"

He didn't scream, or cry, or yell, he didn't even ask for more mulled wine. But something must have leaked past his defences, because when he belatedly started talking about being married to his work, his mother was instantly interrupting to say how silly she'd been, and that it was the mulled wine talking, and that they really ought to go to bed. She hadn't entirely lost her old expertise at skittering away from emotional landmines, and a couple of minutes later they were both heading upstairs in an outwardly calm state.

***

It was Easter 1916, and he was standing outside the Dublin GPO where the English were trapped.

"Army, police, detectives, the lot," said stocky, grey-haired Michael Collins, "We just have to wait it out, and they'll surrender. Let's not be childish here."

"Oh, but that would be boring, Mikey-boy," said Eamon de Valera, slim in his fancy suit, with his hair slicked back, and his wild eyes. "Mycroft's got a better idea for daddy, hasn't he?"

"Yes," said Mycroft. "They're going to die, that's what they're going to do. But we don't want our own men injured. So what we need is explosives. Incendiary devices on the roof, the place'll go up like a candle. Machine guns trained on the doors, no-one's going to get out alive."

"Burn the heart out of the building," de Valera giggled. "I like it."

Even as Mycroft watched, the rockets started, catching on the roof, the points of fire spreading, merging, till the flames coated the building in flickering orange, and the men inside screamed...

And Mycroft woke up and decided that burning down half a city because you were annoyed with your brother was excessive. And that it was time to get up, and go and have breakfast with Mummy, before helping peel the potatoes. Because it was Christmas Day, and the world did not come to a stop for his benefit, and he was mature enough not to expect it to.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's stolen John from Mycroft, but back at Mycroft's favourite warehouse, anything could happen...

It is only after Mycroft has finished his 'discussion' with Mr Mahood a few weeks later, and Anthea has taken the quivering man away in the car, that a short figure emerges from the shadows at the far corner of the warehouse. Of course, when a man has been shown all the exits from a location, he knows all the entrances as well, by definition.

"I see you're still good at menacing people," John says coolly, as he walks up to Mycroft.

I'm not the menacing one here, Mycroft thinks, wishing he had his umbrella to hand. There's a hardness to John's gaze and a grimness about his jaw that he doesn't like, and he finds himself wondering what's in the kitbag on John's shoulder. Not that John really needs any weapons, of course, when he has those strong hands...

"What are you doing here, John?" he says, and is appalled to hear a hint of desire in his own voice even now. He's being stupid. This isn't the old John, not this wary...killer. With the mark on his neck that Mycroft can't see clearly, but is almost certainly a love bite.

"I need to talk to you."

He doesn't like to imagine what the last six months in Sherlock's bed has done to John's psyche, but he knows he's still an emotional mess where John is concerned. He has to protect himself, he can't take any more humiliation. He straightens up, looking down his nose at John, and says, in his most haughty tone:

"I really don't think, Dr Watson, that there's anything to talk about. When I change my phone numbers, the locks on my doors, when I don't contact you, that's something of a hint. Now, I'm afraid you're going to need to make your own way back to 221B Baker Street, because Anthea's busy."

John's chin goes up. "I said we needed to talk. About surveillance."

"Blackmail, John? Not going to work, you're not my interest anymore. Sherlock should have realised that, before he put you up to this."

"Me coming here has nothing to do with Sherlock!"

"It has everything to do with him. It always does." It's stupid, dangerously stupid to be winding up John like this, but he can't help it. "You'd do anything for him, wouldn't you?"

"There are things I won't do, but even now I owe him something. You pulled off the surveillance from him, didn't you, when we got together? You didn't care what happened to him after that, did you, whether he was safe or not?"

"He had you. Who else did he need to protect him?"

"Then you'd better put back the surveillance," John says abruptly, "because Sherlock and I have split up." He turns, and heads rapidly for the door.

"John?" It takes an appalling long time to register, before Mycroft starts clumsily chasing after John, trying to catch up with him, talk to him. But John isn't paying attention, just keeping on going, almost out of the warehouse now. He has to stop him. He reaches out desperately, catching John's right arm, and then remembers after a split-second that you don't do that kind of thing to John. He ducks instinctively as John swivels, which means that as John's left fist comes round, the blow smacks not into Mycroft's stomach, but straight into his mouth.

***

Other than the throbbing pain spreading through most of his face, getting hit is a surprisingly effective tactic, he soon realises. Because, of course, John is constitutionally incapable of abandoning someone who's bleeding. And so they are now sitting in the office and having some of the brandy that had been in John's kitbag, in between Mycroft dabbing at his split lip.

"You were going to go and get drunk after you'd told me, were you?" Mycroft asks John, who's sitting opposite him, almost slumped in his chair.

"That was one option, yeah," John saysquietly. He just looks worn now, not grim. Too many sleepless nights, Mycroft presumes, he knows the feeling. And yet the whole thing suddenly reminds him of one of their early meetings, when he'd faced a man who no longer knew who he was, helped him mould a new identity. Maybe...no, what could he say? Dear John, how would you like to take part in sex with the Holmeses, round three?

He knows now what this encounter is. The wash-up. The day after the disaster, when you've pulled everyone alive from the wreckage that you can, and you now have to clear away the debris and see what can be salvaged. Not a time for heroism, but practicalities.

"Before we go any further, do you somewhere to stay tonight?" he asks. "If not, I can sort out a hotel, or see if someone at work could put you up."

There's a long silence.

"I haven't actually left 221B," John says at last. "When I said we'd split, it's more that Sherlock has kicked me out of bed, not the flat. I think he's fine with me staying there, so I am."

"I see," says Mycroft, wishing he does.

"Do you think I'm a masochist?" John asks abruptly.

None of the FCO manuals include suitably diplomatic answers for that question. Here goes, thought Mycroft.

"No, he says, trying to sound confident, "because even if you hadn't mentioned it when we were together, I think I'd have noticed."

There's the ghost of smile on John's lips. "But you're not a sadist, Mycroft, so it wouldn't have been worth mentioning it."

"I have minions to do the sadistic stuff if necessary, which is far more effective," he replies smoothly. "That's a joke," he adds hastily, when he sees John's sudden stillness. "Not a very funny one, maybe, but I promise you it's just a joke."

"That's...OK," John says. "My fault. I'm rather out of practice with jokes."

For that statement alone, Mycroft wants to rip Sherlock's spine out and make him eat it, although that's not yet an objective, just an aspiration. But first of all he must help John.

"You're not an emotional masochist either, John," he says, trying to put into words what he instinctively knows to be true. "Because...because if you were, whatever Sherlock did to you, you'd still want to be the only one protecting him, you wouldn't be asking my men to do it for you. Whereas I suspect that you're worried that if it's just you around the next time someone tries to beat up Sherlock, that you might be tempted to let the attack carry on just a kick too long before you intervene."

"Do you worry about that too?" John asks slowly.

"Constantly. That's one of the reasons I employ minions to protect Sherlock, and don't try and do it myself."

"But I'm still involved with Sherlock, care about him, even after the way he's treated me. Doesn't that suggest there's something wrong with me?" John asks.

"My dear John, I'm not really the man to comment on that, am I?"

"You're related to him."

"DNA alone brings no emotional commitment, as I'm afraid my father showed. But I realised when Sherlock was four or five that he was this most amazing, fascinating, brilliant creature, with so much potential. Worth trying to preserve, set right, influence."

"He still is. Maybe I'm just not a good influence," John says wearily.

"I know you have been, are, if only for the improved vitamin consumption. But...it's very hard, frustrating work. You think one problem's solved and then another emerges. Sherlock's personality is rather like the Forth Bridge in that way."

"You've trained him well, Mycroft," John says, "On a lot of things at least." He grins suddenly. "Does that sound patronising?"

"Absolutely, if said to Sherlock, but to me I think it's justified. It's rather gratifying to have that aspect of my work appreciated. It's another line for the obituary I won't have. 'Prevented the second Falklands War, semi-humanized his brother, Sherlock.' "

"The second Falklands War?"

"It didn't happen, so I shouldn't have mentioned it. But it came nearer than it should have done." Mycroft pauses, because he suddenly remembers what he has next on his check-list. It's going to rip up the thin web of trust spreading between them again, but he a duty to ask about this.

"I don't know my training of Sherlock has been adequate," he says at last. "I told you once, didn't I, that I would protect Sherlock as long as he didn't turn to serious violence?"

"As long as he didn't kill anyone, at least without justification."

"Not just killing. I don't want to ask you, John, but I have to know, for people's safety, for the protection of my own surveillance team.Do you think that Sherlock is dangerous?" The pain in his skull seems to be merging now with the pain in his jaw from the effort of saying this, of keeping some kind of control. "Did he...hurt you in any way? You have to tell me."

"And if he did, what would you do, Mycroft?" John's taut voice demands, and his fists are clenching now, the knuckles turning white. "Add a few extra notes to his file, work out a new training plan?"

"Rip his spine out and make him eat it!" Mycroft explodes. "Even if I need some bloody minions to help me do it!"

Something in John's face seems to crack open, and he starts giggling hysterically, which isn't fair, except Mycroft is suddenly half-crying with laughter as well. Because this is really not what almost being the British government is supposed to be like.

At last John's paroxysms die down, and he looks up shakily at Mycroft, his eyes suddenly sober. "If I told you it was all consensual, and almost all non-violent, would that be enough?"

"It ought to be, and I have no right to know anything more-"

"But if I don't tell you what happened, you're just going to imagine things, aren't you, have pictures in your head?"

Not just in my head, thought Mycroft, but he didn't say anything, just nodded.

"And besides," said John, smiling and shaking his head, "I have to explain what happened to someone, and you're probably the only person in the world who can understand exactly how having a gorgeous man with boundless energy desperately wanting to have sex with you could go so horribly, horribly wrong."

"The sex was bad, was it?" Mycroft says and then groans at the eagerness in his voice.

"The sex was wonderful at the start," John says, "And you're going to have to decide right now whether to hear the 'wonderful' or the 'at the start' in that sentence."

"What went wrong?"

"That's the right question. Sherlock was, is, rather more experienced than you'd realised, but like both of us, had never had a steady partner before. Well, maybe steady's not the right word. Someone he could experiment with, on. And he didn't find it easy to stop, put any limits on what he did."

There was a pause.

"He broke a lot of toys when he was young," Mycroft says at last. "Ones he really liked. He just couldn't stop trying to see what happened if you took things further, did things they weren't designed for."

"I always thought I was reasonably broad-minded," John replies, "but actually, I found my limits fairly soon. That I don't find pain sexy, or leather, or uniforms. That there are practical reasons why some positions are popular and some aren't, especially if you're not a contortionist. And, and Sherlock started getting bored. Because it was never really about me, it was about the sensations, the possession. Did you know that all along? That my only real appeal for Sherlock was that I had been yours?"

"Some of your appeal, yes, but it wasn't just that. He is capable of sharing now, even with me, except for something, someone he really values."

"He has a funny way of showing it. Mycroft, why is Sherlock the way he is?"

"Even if I knew, I'm not sure it would help. Does knowing 4000 years of history make you able to solve the problem of the Middle East? Sherlock gets bored easily, he craves novelty. That is a fact, you have to live with it."

"As is the fact that role-play with a would-be method actor is really not a good idea. And that Sherlock got pissed off because I wouldn't agree to a threesome..." John's voice drains away.

No, thinks Mycroft, no, no, no, no.

"Don't freak out! It didn't happen, I said 'no'."

"But he wanted it!"

"Not the way you think. Do you know who the threesome was going to be? X, Y and Z. Because it was all about bloody geometry for him, not actual people."

"I'm sorry," Mycroft says eventually.

"Not your fault."

"I saved Sherlock from drowning in 1981. It was probably a mistake."

"I'm sure it was the correct decision on utilitarian grounds," John says. "And if he'd drowned your mother would have been upset."

Mycroft nods. "So then," he says, because he suddenly knows what came next, "Sherlock got bored with sex at 221B and switched to more exciting locations."

"How much do you know?" John asks.

"Not much. And not what it was like for you, which is the only really important thing."

"Sherlock may not get embarrassed easily, but I do," John says, and Mycroft sees he's flexing his fingers in the way he does when he thinks his hand is about to start shaking.

"You can only feel embarrassed in the presence of people whose opinion you respect. Sherlock has occasionally been embarrassed in front of you."

"I suppose so," says John, "And I haven't got a criminal record yet, which I presume is down to you, and I never want to travel by Ryanair again anyhow. But it's not just the embarrassment, it was bloody uncomfortable. Sand on your skin, in your hair, everywhere, isn't enjoyable. And nor are thistles or brick walls. Clean sheets, hot water, dry clothes may be boring, but that doesn't stop me liking them. You spoiled me for pleasure, Mycroft, and it's been hard to give that up."

"Did he feed you peaches, John?"

"No, we didn't have time for things like that. We never had enough time. There was always somewhere else to go, something else to try. And, and I'm nearly forty, and I've never been quite the same since Afghanistan, and with this on top of the cases I couldn't keep up. I was getting tired, sick, picking up injuries."

Then at last, Mycroft dares to get up, go round the table, stand beside John, look at the mark on his neck.

"I'm no expert, but are love bites supposed to suppurate?"

"Sherlock's insistence on mouth pipetting, and his grossly inadequate standards of hygiene. It looks worse than it is."

Mycroft finally remembers what he should have realised long ago. John hadn't been leaving the warehouse fast enough, had he? Mycroft shouldn't have been able to catch him up.

"Is your leg hurt as well?" he asks.

"Right knee ligaments strained. Again, not serious, but it was the last straw, because Sherlock had seen something on a website..."

"Is there any permanent damage?"

"No. Except, I suppose you could count the tattoo." John unbuttons his left cuff, rolling up the sleeve. The slightly uneven letters across his inner arm read SHERL.

"Did he get bored with how long it was taking," Mycroft asks, "because it's a longer name than John?"

"No, he decided he didn't like the font style, and thought Times New Roman would look more stylish."

"I've got people who can remove that kind of thing," Mycroft says, reaching out and absent-mindedly tracing the line of the tattoo. "And the skin's not damaged." His brain belatedly catches up with his finger-tips. Oh help, he thinks, inappropriate fondling of a war hero again.

"Are you going to kiss my palms as well?" John asks, looking up at him, and it's not just a question, but an invitation.

"Of course," Mycroft says and then hesitates. "Except if I do, am I going to start my lip bleeding again?"

"Quite possibly, and blood isn't sexy. So hold out your hands, please, both of them, Mr Holmes, and I'll kiss you."

John swivels round in his chair and reaches up for Mycroft's hands, rather than standing up, which suggests his knee really is hurting him. His lips are gentle, barely brushing Mycroft's skin, but still finding every nerve end, and it's wonderful. And tomorrow he's going to have to get fruit - not peaches, not in season, have to be satsumas - and they can eat them messily together, because that's sugar and vitamin C and thus surely OK for both of them. But now, now, this is all he wants.

"Your hands are shaking," John says eventually.

"I'm not a brave man."

"But a stupid one, maybe. Taking me back, after what I've done."

"After what I've done to you, John, I wonder you're back. After I pushed you away."

"Well if I ever start thinking about Sherlock's body again, hold me close, because it'll be a nightmare." John pauses. "There's no chance Sherlock will change his mind, is there?"

"What were his precise words?"

" 'I wouldn't have sex with you again, John, if you were the last man in the solar system'. I mean, obviously, there was a lot more than that, but that was the key sentence."

"He's... stubborn when he's made his mind up about something. I told you once about how my father tried to make him eat something and he wouldn't, didn't I?"

"Lettuce, fish, no, it was sausages, wasn't it? And he ended up in hospital. Yeah, that's stubborn."

"I didn't tell you the sequel. When he got back from hospital, he rooted around in the dustbin and found the sausages. And stuck them in some kind of preserving fluid-"

"And they're still in a specimen jar in the flat right now. I've never dared ask what they were, and I wish you hadn't told me." John pauses, and then asks, "Do you really not mind me staying there?"

"If you're still helping with the cases, you need to be on hand, and it means there's a vague chance of Sherlock getting a balanced diet. And frankly, the CIA will be happier if you're not officially based in Richmond. Though I'm not entering a bedroom in 221B unless I've been assured that it's been deep cleaned and that Sherlock is on a different continent."

"Are you sure it's OK that I'm involved with Sherlock at all?"

"He's my brother, if you're with me you can't avoid being involved with him in some way. It's the way things are, and we have to work with that. I'm sure there are times Mexico thinks it would be nice to relocate. And I, I pushed you into the relationship with Sherlock, after all, didn't I?"

"Yeah, I realised that eventually. Was it a mind-blowingly clever plan all along, or just complete self-sacrificing idiocy?"

"Pure idiotic utilitarianism."

"You've got to stop following Jeremy Bentham's advice on your love life," John says, sounding completely drunk on something that definitely wasn't the brandy. "Because he didn't know shit about sex."

"How can you be sure?"

"I've seen his mummified body at UCL and he clearly wasn't getting laid even when he was alive."

They both collapse into giggles again. God, I want to kiss him, Mycroft thinks, but he settles for stroking John's hair, as John leans his head against Mycroft's stomach.

"What now?" John says at last. "You're the organised one."

"I hate to spoil the atmosphere," Mycroft says, "But as always, the first question has to be, where is Sherlock and is he going to cause trouble?"

"I think he's still out experimenting."

"Chemicals or sex?"

"Sex. He's started working his way through the Pink Paper's listings. Comparative studies, I suppose."

"I'll put the surveillance teams on him tomorrow," Mycroft says. "For tonight, he's a big boy now and he can look after himself."

"And if he gets mugged in a toilet in Soho, that'd be tragic, wouldn't it?" says John with entirely inappropriate glee.

"It'd be a learning experience," says Mycroft blandly, "Sherlock needs those. But the first thing to do is to get you to a doctor, check you are really are OK, before we take things any further."

"I am a doctor," John says. "I brought supplies." Suddenly he's rummaging in his kitbag, dragging out objects: condoms, lubricant, a small case he opens that has a syringe inside.

"What's that?" Mycroft says warily.

"Local anaesthetic. Once I put it in my knee, I won't feel anything much for the next few hours. If that's what you want." John looks up at Mycroft calmly, awaiting his response.

He's been with Sherlock for far too long, hasn't he, Mycroft thinks, and he blurts out: "Why are you so stupidly bloody brave?"

"British army, I'm afraid. Just the way it is."

"You came prepared, didn't you?" Mycroft says. "The brandy as well. You were coming to try and get me back, weren't you?"

"Nicest times I've ever had have been with you," John says simply. "As soon as I could see a way back, I came."

"You have a hopeless seduction technique, though, rushing off like that."

"I lost my nerve!" John almost wails. "The way you looked at me like I was a stray paper-clip. And I didn't know what to say."

"I do," says Mycroft, "and I'm also very easily seduced. So put away the syringe, because it may numb the pain now, but I'm sure it can't be good for you long-term. I'm a patient man, and I'm prepared to wait. The first thing, then, isn't a doctor, but some food and rest for you. And...I hate to mention this, John, but when did you last have a shower, or wash your hair?"

"I've been staking out the warehouse for days," John says, starting to blush.

"You are really, really hopeless at seduction, aren't you? But I'm not. So you will come back to Richmond and have a bath, and sleep for a week if you need it, and get yourself fit, while I sort out David and Nick and Ed and all the rest of them, and tell them to behave responsibly for a few days. And then I get Sherlock put in a police cell, or at least somewhere with no mobile phone signal. And then I come home, and cook us a meal, and we eat and talk, and go upstairs to my bedroom, and have boring, middle-aged, safe, comfortable, enjoyable sex. Because I am a man of conservative tastes and mundane is all I am good for."

"Mundane is good," says John, "mundane is wonderful." He pauses, and then asks: "Are you sure you're OK to wait?"

"We have all the time in the world. Well, half of all the time in the world, at least." Mycroft reaches down and carefully takes John's right hand, because the left one must still be sore after that punch. "Come with me, John, and let's grow old together."


End file.
